In an E Ink display, no backlight is used rather, ambient light from the environment is reflected from the surface of the display back to your eyes. Keeping an image on the screen doesn’t require any power at all.Į Ink displays are referred to as “reflective displays.” In an LCD, or “emissive display”, light from a backlight is projected through the display towards your eyes. (When you turn the page on a Kindle, the resulting flash is just the ink rearranging itself.) That rearranging takes a very small amount of power, but when it’s done, it shuts off. Using electrical fields, the display rearranges the ink to show different things on the screen. Some of the ink in each capsule is white, some are black. This e-paper display is filled with really tiny ink capsules, which have electric charges. The Amazon Kindle line of e-readers employ e-paper displays, made by E-Ink. Amazon also mentions that reading in the dark on a Kindle is better than a smartphone or tablet. The Amazon Kindle is the world’s most popular e-reader and in all of their marketing material it says the display is easy on the eyes, allowing you to read for hours at a time.